Cursed by the Sea God (10 page)

Looking down the far side I could see a granite boulder, tall as a man and worn
perfectly round, halfway down the hill. As I watched, it rocked and shifted
slightly.
Uphill
. Pen glanced over shyly as though showing me a secret.
“Do you know what that is?”

I watched as the boulder inched its way up toward us. “Uh, Pen, shouldn’t we
get out of the way? At least I should. I guess you’re in no danger—” I broke off
as I realized how tactless that sounded, but he didn’t notice.

“Don’t worry. We’re safe here.”

The boulder crept its way up the hill toward us, and now I
could hear wheezing from behind it. “Someone’s pushing it!”

Pen nodded. It was almost at the top now, nearly close enough to reach down and
touch. I was getting nervous but Pen seemed unconcerned. A gruff voice was
panting, “Nearly there . . . this time . . .”

Suddenly the boulder slipped to the side and began to tumble back down the
hill. “Gods curse it!” came a despairing shout. “Not again!” It picked up speed
and crashed down the hill to rumble to a stop not far from the bottom.

I glanced at the man who had been behind it. Heavy and bald, with short,
powerful arms and bowed legs, he stared up at us. Give him more hair and less
paunch and he’d look something like Lopex. “Curse all the gods, I nearly had it
that time. Better leverage, that’s what I need.” He turned and stumped back down
the hill.

I looked at Pen, who shrugged. “All I know is, he hasn’t stopped since I got
here. But he’s special, he keeps his life form. There’s a few like that. They
say his name is Sisyphus.”

I glanced back toward the Greeks. Lopex was still deep in conversation with the
seer. Down the hill, the stocky man put his shoulder to the rock and began
pushing it up the hill again. “Hey!” I called. “Why are you doing that?”

As if on cue, the boulder leapt from his grasp and rolled back down. He glared
up at me, panting. “Now look what you’ve done, curse you!” He gestured down the
hill. “I nearly had it!”

He’d been hardly a quarter of the way up, but I wasn’t about to
argue with someone who could push a boulder uphill. Even if he was dead. “Um,
sorry.” I walked down the hill after him, Elpenor trailing anxiously behind.
“Why are you doing that?”

He reached the boulder and glanced at me. “Something I did,” he muttered.
“Doesn’t matter now. But Zeus hates me for it, may his
kopros
-befouled
beard catch fire. Should have known he had no sense of humour. Anyway, this is
my punishment.” He gave the rock a kick. “Once I get old Berta here to the very
top, I can stop.”

“So why do you keep letting go?”

“You think I’m doing it on purpose?” he grunted. “You try pushing that
gods-cursed thing up a hill, boy. It’s enchanted. As soon as I get near the top,
it slips to the side and gets away.”

Uh huh. “So why don’t you try something else?”

He gestured impatiently around us. “Look around, boy. See any carpenter’s
shops? Nothing to build a ramp out of, scaffolding, winches, not even wood for a
rolling channel. And no tools anyway. So I keep trying. Maybe one day Hades will
be distracted, curse his flea-ridden armpits, and the enchantment will collapse
for just long enough.”

You didn’t meet many people willing to curse the gods like that, and I found
myself liking him. I looked at the boulder for a moment, thinking. “Does the
boulder have to be in one piece?”

He squinted at me. “In one piece? What do I look like— Herakles? Just how am I
going to break it up, boy, chew it to bits?”

I hesitated for a moment before holding out the pick I’d been
carrying. “I was just thinking—maybe you could use this.”

He drew a breath to argue, then stopped, frowning. “Bring it up in pieces?” He
scratched his chin through his beard. “You know, son, that just might work.
Nobody said it had to be intact.” He swung the pick experimentally at the
boulder and watched a large flake chip off, nodding thoughtfully.

“Listen, son, you’ve done me a good turn. Let me return the favour. From up
here I see everything. You came in through the lake portal.” He gestured at me
with the pickaxe. “I tell you this: getting in is hard, but getting out is
worse. Hades, curse his filthy feet, lets nothing escape. In my time I’ve seen
every exit this place ever had. As he finds them, he seals them. If you’re
thinking you can just row back out, think again.”

I nodded. We’d shot down that channel like an oat down a throat. I couldn’t see
us getting out that way again.

“Just remember, boy. You’re in Hades now. Hades the god, Hades the domain. He
won’t let you go.” He caught my puzzled expression and bent down to look me in
the eye. “He has to want you out. Irritate him, boy. That’s your escape.”

Hefting the pick, he added, “Now stand back; I’ve got some gravel to
make.”

As we returned to my boulder near the Greeks, I glanced over at Elpenor. To my
dismay, he didn’t look solid anymore, his sharp edges fading. “Pen? What’s
happening?”

He held up his arms and I realized with a shock I could see
through them. “It’s the blood meal. It doesn’t last. I should have sat still.”
Why hadn’t he said something? He was reverting to a shapeless wisp before my
eyes. A formless hand reached for my shoulder but passed through it like a cold
shiver. What remained of his face contorted as he struggled to speak. “Remember,
Alexi.” His voice was a fading whisper. “Bury my body. Please. And watch for the
dead . . . the dead you knew . . .”

His voice faded into a reedy whisper, and the wisp that had been Elpenor
drifted away on an unfelt breeze.

I stared after him, willing him to come back, but he was gone. I turned slowly
and made my way down the hill to the Greeks and perched on my boulder again.
Lopex was talking to a group of shades in armour.

What had Pen meant: watch for the dead I knew? Sophronios, of course. I
shuddered. Stupid to have given away that pick. If that creature got his hands
on me now, he’d kill me and spend eternity tormenting me. Somehow I was sure he
would have been one of the first at the blood trough.

There was movement out of the corner of my eye. A shade had left the few still
sipping the last cooling fumes at the trench, slipping toward me across the
rocky ground. I sprang to my feet, but as the grey form came closer, I spotted a
pale arrow sticking awkwardly out of its chest. That was strange. Sophro had
been killed by the Cyclops, his head smashed against a wall.

The figure loomed out of the gloom. It was a man, slimmer
than
Sophro, wearing a simple
chiton
, no armour.

I knew him. Gods, I knew him. I swallowed, fighting sudden tears.

“Father?”

The shade slipped up to me and stopped. “Alexi?
Son
?”

MY MOUTH OPEN, I couldn’t make a sound. Suddenly I had my arms
around him, a strange, cold sensation, but I didn’t care. It was my father. His
voice murmured in my ear. “Lex, Lex. I’m so sorry. You know I would have given
anything to stay with you.” A cold afterlife of the arrow that had killed him
was rubbing awkwardly against my neck, but I didn’t care.

He steered me back to the boulder and we sat down side by side. “We don’t have
much time, son. The spirit meal will give me substance only for a little while.
So tell me, what are you doing here?”

My father! As if a floodgate had opened, I began to talk, holding nothing back.
The three years after his death on the
battlefield outside Troy,
three years in which Melantha and I had bartered everything we owned for food.
Being thrown out of our house to become street orphans. The fall of Troy, after
the Greeks somehow got inside the city walls.

He shook his head. “Past the walls? That can’t be right. Nothing got through
those walls, not in seven years of siege.”

I grunted. “Look, I didn’t say I knew how. But I was there. You were—” I broke
off.

He nodded heavily. “I’m sorry, son. I wish . . . well, you know what I wish.
I’m glad you’ve survived, at least.”

Melantha—he didn’t know. I moved on quickly. “They used some sort of trick to
get in. I don’t know what. We thought we’d won! The day after they left, the
whole city held a party in the streets. We were wrong, though. The Greeks had
all sailed away, but that was a trick too. The whole fleet came back that night,
when everyone was drunk or asleep.”

My father had glanced over at Lopex at the mention of a trick. I nodded. “He
had something to do with it. Or so he said. He was the one who took me as a
slave. I suppose I should be glad. Ury was about to kill me.”

My father rubbed his mouth thoughtfully. “So you’re a slave now?” I nodded. “At
least you’re alive. If you want to survive, make yourself as useful as you can,
perhaps as a healer’s boy. And for Athene’s sake, Alexi,
try
not to talk
back.”

“If you hadn’t gotten yourself killed, you could have trained me,” I snapped.
The words were barely out before I wanted them back. “Father, I—”

“Alexi, you don’t know—” he said at the same time.

I found my voice again first. “I’m sorry, father,” I said. “It
wasn’t your fault.”

He sighed. “No, you’re right. If I hadn’t been out on that battlefield, perhaps
I’d still be alive.”

“I guess.” That reminded me. “Do you remember a Greek soldier, a big man, bald,
bulging lower lip, named Aegyptos? He said you took his arm off on the
battlefield.”

My father thought for a moment. “I didn’t know his name, but yes, that sounds
familiar.” He nodded. “I remember now. It was during the second battle of the
Scamander plain. His arm was mangled, half ripped off. The wound filled with mud
from the plain. Likely it saved him from bleeding to death, though. I never
heard if he’d survived. Why?”

“Did you know you saved my life that day?”

My father looked at me, puzzled, and I described how Aegyptos had saved me from
Ury to repay the debt. My father’s eyes were glistening as I finished. “Well.”
His hands brushed his ghostly
chiton
. “Well,” he repeated. “Son, I’m so
glad. You don’t know how I’ve felt, leaving you. I’m glad you told me.”

Suddenly he frowned, tilting his head.

“Father?” I asked. “What—”

He put up a hand. “Listen.”

Around me, the background whisper of the milling shades was swelling, becoming
shrill and anxious. No longer drifting aimlessly, they had begun to flitter and
dart about in agitation.

My father had his head tilted up, listening. “The shades are
disturbed. I can feel it too. It’s something . . .” his eyes focused and he
gripped my arm. “Alexi, you’d better leave. Right away.”

“What is it?” I began, but broke off. From the distance came an eerie howl that
could have escaped no mortal throat. The back of my neck prickled.

“It’s
him
.” My father’s tone was urgent. He gave my forehead a quick,
cold kiss as he hauled me to my feet, then shoved me after the Greeks, already
edging nervously toward their ship. I turned back to say goodbye, but he shook
his head. “Just run. Don’t look back.” As I started after the departing Greeks,
he called out. “May the gods be with you, son. I know you’ll make me
proud.”

There was a sound like the crack of a monstrous whip, and another unearthly
howl ripped the air apart behind me. Ahead, the Greeks broke into a run, leaving
dark footprints in the glowing moss. I put on a burst of speed, darting through
a curtain of frantic shades to reach the beach just as the ship pushed into the
water. As Lopex went over the bow rail, he turned back to frown at me for a
moment before reaching down to haul me up and drop me sprawling on the deck.
“Phidios!” he called to the rowing master as he turned away. “Take us across!
Find the entrance!”

As the men bent their backs to pull us across the dark lake, I looked back.
Coming around the hill I had climbed earlier was something huge. A monstrous,
malformed dog-shape, wrinkled and hairless as a newborn rat, as big as the
Pelagios
herself. Its pale skin was crisscrossed with
slashes and half-healed scars. As the creature emerged from behind the hill on
its stubby legs, the welts oozed a deep, glowing red, shocking to the eye in
this land of grey.

It reached the top of the hill, squatted and raised its snout to unleash a
deafening howl, shot through with rage and pain. Another howl joined the first,
and I peered through the gloom before spotting the source: hanging like a tumour
off the creature’s bloated belly was a second head. As it turned its lacerated
snout to bay in our direction, I caught sight of a third head, hairless and
long-nosed, snapping rat’s teeth at us from deep inside the creature’s
mouth.

Facing backward to row, the men had a clear view of the creature and were
pulling hard enough to bend their oars. Ahead, the portal we had come down was
coming into view through the gloom. But dry! The water that had swallowed us
down had drained away, and the channel sloped upward.

The bald man with the boulder had been right. There was no escaping this way.
Wait—what had he said?
Irritate him
.
You have to make him want you
out
. But how did you irritate a god? I was pretty sure shouting insults
wouldn’t work.

A whip cracked behind us and there came another howl, this one tinged with
agony. I turned to see a huge, man-shaped figure towering over the monstrous
rat-hound, a whip in his hand. His skin, hair and tunic were utterly, completely
black. Not just dark-skinned, as I’d seen on some of the fierce Ethiopian
fighters who had been our wartime allies, but an abso
lute black
that soaked up any light falling on it like a sponge. Only his eyes had colour,
burning the deep red of live coals in their sockets. A chill ran through me.
Lord Hades
.

The whip cracked again, burning another glowing weal across the dog-creature’s
hairless flank. It howled its pain and anger once more and began to shuffle down
the beach toward us, its belly nearly dragging on the ground.

Make him want you out
. My father used to mix salt and mustard to
persuade sick stomachs to release their contents. A pity we couldn’t force Hades
to swallow a dose. He’d spit us out for sure. Or could we? I looked at the
rounded walls of the cavern and back at the rocky throat we had come down,
thinking—and suddenly I had an idea of what Sisyphus might have meant. Hades the
god, Hades the domain. The way he’d said it made it sound like there was no
difference.

I leapt down into the bow hold, jarring my shins. There. An urn full of salt.
The Greeks used it to preserve their meat for travelling. Snatching up a jute
millet sack nearby, I tore it open with my sister’s knife and emptied it onto
the floor.

Kassander, hidden in the hold, emerged from between two bales of sailcloth.
“What is it?”

There was no time. “Hold this.” I handed him the sack and tipped the urn into
it, then took it from him to lug it back up the ladder to the deck.

Behind us, the creature had nearly dragged itself to the beach. Lopex had
stationed archers at the stern, but to that thing, arrows would be no more than
flea bites. Phidios had
halted us at the upward-sloping entrance
to the tunnel, and the rowers muttered apprehensively as the creature approached
the water.

I poured the heavy sack over the bow rail into the black water below and
watched. Nothing. My heart sank. Looking around at the stomach-like cave, I had
been sure this was what Sisyphus had meant. I had already turned away in
disappointment when a sudden hiss like a pot reaching a boil drew me back to the
rail.

The water off the bow was beginning to bubble and spit. A round, frothing
crater was somehow growing in the water next to us. A man’s height across one
moment, wide enough to hold the ship a moment later. The
Pelagios
lurched
sideways as we were pulled over the lip. Still expanding, the crater became a
wave, flowing out in all directions from us, growing and frothing. It struck the
beach behind us and rebounded, swelling into a churning mass higher than our
prow.

At the stern, Lopex could see it coming. “Rowers! Ship oars! Ship oars!” he
shouted. “And as you fear the gods,
hang on
!” I dropped to the deck and
wound my arms tightly through the bow rail struts. Gods, what had I done? I
could hear the wave growing louder as it roared toward us. For a moment it
towered over the stern before lifting us like a leaf and thrusting us back up
the throat of Hades.

The ship smashed against the tunnel walls as the water threw us back up,
snapping off oars and carrying away entire hull planks and railings. Behind us,
the roaring black wave
filled the entire cave, threatening to
engulf us at any moment. My arms were being pulled off my shoulders as I clung
desperately to the struts, praying to the gods to hold the ship together. I
couldn’t even see the last few feet of the stern, swallowed by the rushing black
wave. Was it already gone? The Greeks were moaning in terror, and I clamped my
mouth hard to keep from doing the same.

Suddenly it was brighter. A moment later we shot out of the tunnel like a cork
squeezed from a goatskin, twisting in mid-air to smash down on the water, heeled
halfway over in the middle of the grey lake. For a moment I thought the impact
had ripped my arms off. The ship bobbed unsteadily, then slowly righted. If we
had rolled over and sunk right then, no one could have raised a finger to stop
it. As I lay panting, looking back at the solid rock wall I knew we had just
been vomited from, my mind returned to something I had glimpsed just before the
wave carried us into the tunnel: the huge Lord Hades, bent over the hill and
retching, as though he had swallowed something he couldn’t digest.

“Why, Lopex!” Circe chirped as he splashed onto the beach from the shallows,
her bird’s-nest hair bound with a kerchief that matched her robin’s-egg blue
robe. “What a nice surprise! You couldn’t keep away from me after all!” She
reached out playfully to take his arm but he yanked it away.

“Not by my choice, witch!” he growled. “No sooner had we departed the river of
Hades than a sea current snatched up
our ship, a current that we
could neither row nor sail against until it beached us here. Do you stand there
and tell me it was none of your doing?”

She pouted at him. “Oh, don’t be that way.” She reached out to brush his hair
from his forehead but he frowned and pushed her hand away.

“Please, don’t be angry with me.” Her face brightened. “And look at your ship,
my wolf, you really must stay and repair it. What
have
you been doing to
the poor thing? It looks like owls have been nesting in it. Tonight I’ll prepare
a banquet for you and your men, and read the auguries again to see what else
might be in your future.” She stood on tiptoe to whisper something in his ear,
her hands on his chest. This time he didn’t push her away.

That evening, as I approached the soldiers’ campfire, I heard Deklah, speaking
with his mouth full of bread. “It’s true, she didn’t even chew her own food. Had
a slave do it for her.” At someone’s question, he added, “No, it wasn’t a poison
taster. She actually had a food chewer. Spooned it right out of her mouth into
the queen’s.”

The mention of poison reminded me of Pen’s death. Pen! I stiffened, remembering
my promise. A glance at Ury told me he was too drunk to be a danger to anyone
but himself. Even so, I was careful to slip away without being obvious. Grabbing
a bolt of sailcloth from the hold as a shroud, I headed for where I had left
Pen’s body.

The moon, a few days off full, was the kind we called a
trencherman’s moon, back in Troy. It was high overhead by the time I found
Elpenor’s body, lying under a bush. Whether by some magic or the dry island air,
it was barely decomposed, and the lions hadn’t found it. Wrapping him in the
sailcloth, I wrestled him over my shoulder and staggered off in search of a
burial site.

I knew it as soon as I spotted it, a moonlit cove a short walk north of the
Pelagios
. A few night gulls wheeled above the moonlit water. An
unthreatening scene, the kind Pen would have liked. Buried properly here,
perhaps he would have the respect in Hades that he had never had in life. And
perhaps the guilt that had eaten at me since his death would finally be
appeased.